Seven step plan to sort out South Yorkshire buses following review

Politicians and transport bosses will outline a seven step plan in order to finally sort out South Yorkshire’s broken bus system.
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Council leaders and Sheffield City Region mayor Dan Jarvis will lay out short term steps in the coming months to attempt in making bus services better for residents of the county.

The seven point plan will start with fully integrating South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (SYPTE) into the governance of SCR. Mayor Jarvis has previously said the body is ‘no longer fit for purpose’ and its operations were ‘more about the executive than the passenger’.

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SCR bosses will then undertake a full analysis of the South Yorkshire bus network to ensure buses run where people want them to go now, and in the future.

Doncaster Cleveland StreetDoncaster Cleveland Street
Doncaster Cleveland Street

This will take a so-called ‘bottom up’ approach focussing on each area of South Yorkshire and the need for integrated routes across the county. Analysis will look at volume, timings, amount of passengers and speed of journey.

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Quality analysis will come next and transport chiefs will look to Identify the investment and infrastructure required to improve the quality of service and experience for passengers.

Bosses are also looking at a complete deep dive and potential overhaul of the pricing system across the county.

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Consideration for the cost of using the regions bus services while developing a new pricing and ticketing framework to drive up passenger numbers and make it ‘affordable, flexible and attractive’. This will include a review of concessions to ensure they meet passenger needs.

Environmental analysis will also take place in order to identify investment and infrastructure required to meet the mayoral combined authority’s net zero commitments.

Work will need to be done to get through the legal and financial implications of changing the current bus service delivery model using the powers available in the Bus Services Act 2017.

This will include consideration of ‘enhanced partnerships, either across South Yorkshire or in specific local authorities. It will also consider the long term legal and financial options for other models such as franchising.

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A financial planning exercise working with councils and bus operators will take place to produce a new cost model to achieve the objectives set out in the seven point plan.

The announcement comes on the back of the South Yorkshire bus review which outlined a raft of failures and a pathway to overhauling the service over the next five years.

Chloe Shepherd, senior programme manager for transport at SCR, said: “It is recognised that there is a need for real change to happen as soon as possible to meet the expectations of passengers. As such it is proposed to adopt an ambitious and accelerated timescale for undertaking this work, with a view to identifying changes which could begin from the 2021/22 financial year.

“The following timetable recommends that in August 2020, commissions are put out to market to undertake the analytical workstreams.

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“Work begins on the seven point plan and the MCA will receive a report outlining the proposed approach to integrating SYPTE within the MCA in September.

“The MCA will consider interim findings before the New Year from the analytical workstreams and any immediate changes that can be implemented from April 2021 in order to feed into the January budget report. Recognising that the majority of changes are likely to be implemented in subsequent financial years.

“In March 2021, the MCA will receive the final output from the analysis and agree a process for making recommended changes that will be implemented moving forwards.”

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